Palliative/Hospice Care

Many people consider their pets as family members. It is always difficult and painful to say goodbye when the pets get old or have terminal illness. Similar to human hospice, veterinary hospice addresses treatment of pain and other symptoms to achieve the best quality of life regardless of disease outcome, while at the same time, provide the emotional support to the pet owners during this difficult time.

Dr. Tiffany Ma launched Compassion Pet Hospice because she has gone through this journey in 2014 with her dog Lucky. It can be devastating to find out that your pet only have a few weeks to live and you were told that there is nothing that can be done about it. However, in fact, there is always something we can do about it - we can evaluate the pain level and treat the pain, we can adjust some home setting to help the pet maintain the daily routine, we can also use acupuncture and herbal medicine as part of the multimodal approach to improve the quality of life, and so on.

Also, end-of-life care is a team effort involving the hospice veterinarian, the regular veterinarian (if there is one) and the pet owner. Together, a point-of-contact can be offered to families in need for consultation, hospice care, euthanasia, cremation services and most importantly, support during this difficult time.

One of the main focus of veterinary hospice care is to evaluate the quality of life of patients continuously. Since our pets cannot tell us directly how they feel, it is important to have a veterinarian who is specialized in end-of-life care to guide, support, and educate pet owners how to assess whether the pets are having good days vs bad days. The goal is to avoid convenience or premature euthanasia and to ensure the pet is comfortable until the time that the pet dies naturally or until the need for euthanasia is determined by the owners with the help from hospice care professional and family.

What to expect

During a hospice consultation, Dr. Ma will review your pet's medical records and perform a thorough physical exam of your pet. She would listen in order to learn your expectation and commitment in performing hospice care at home. She may evaluate your home setting and make suggestions to ensure your pet can still carry on the routine without difficulty. At home situation, it would be much easier for Dr. Ma to evaluate whether the animal is in pain since the animal is at the most familiar environment without or with minimal secretion of cortisol (stress hormone) to mask the pain. Depends on each pet's situation, medications may be prescribed for pain control, appetite stimulation, and wound care. Dr. Ma will also provide you tools on how to monitor pet's quality of life, discuss with you about end-of-life care plan, and provide emotional support.

Dr. Ma will arrive in normal casual clothing (no lab coat or scrubs) to make the visit as easy and low-key as possible. If your pet can potentially be aggressive towards strangers, please give notice to Dr. Ma ahead of time and she will discuss with you what should be done to prepare the home visit appointment.